Self-Adjusting Gunstock Recoil Pad

ABSTRACT

A Self-adjusting Gunstock Recoil Pad comprises of an intermediary mounting plate with individually movable segments bearing against a ring. The elastic ring is forced outwards by each segment, and provides a field-adjustable external contour matching individual variations in profile of gun-to-recoil-pad interfaces. A recess in the plate holds a wedge captive by a pin through a slot in the wedge, the wedge when inserted engages bosses protruding from the pad into a receiver and forms an attachment between the gun and pad which is reversible by use of a hook shaped wrench applied to a receiving profile in the plate, the profile guides the action of the wrench in pulling the wedge out. The plate is assembled from two layers to confine the wedge as an assembly by use of tabs in one layer engaging interference-fit cut-outs in the other layer.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The application relates generally to methods of mounting cushions and recoil reducing devices, such as found on the butt-end of shoulder fired guns, and more particularly, to provide a means to adjust the size of the pad or cushion to match pre-existing butt-stock profiles without the need for attrition of the pad or cushion, or of specialized tools.

BACKGROUND ART

Recoil reducing cushions are used extensively on the butt-stock end of shoulder fired guns. Over the years, various types have been developed. However, it has always been a challenge to design a well-fitting device which accommodates the size variations inherent in each individual gun stock. Entire industries have evolved to produce exact fitting after-market parts without much success. The inherent problem lies in the original production methods of gunstocks. They are typically sanded and finished to a particular appearance, rather than to a specific exacting size tolerance. In addition, the bulk of working examples which are in the public domain were produced before the age of computer age machining and were fabricated using ever-changing specialty tooling jigs, craftsmanship, and procedures, generally on wood which inherently moves small amounts with changes in atmospheric moisture; many of which have been modified and fitted through the ages to suit a particular user. Large scale production of exactly fitting pads intended to retrofit those gun stocks already in the public domain is impossible or impractical. Other strategies to overcome this sizing issue involve producing over-sized pads, and employing specialized equipment and the skill of qualified technicians to fit the pad to the stock by attrition on a case-by-case basis, which requires great cost and effort and poses elevated risk of damage to existing finishes on the stock.

There thus remains room for improvements.

SUMMARY

In accordance with a first aspect of the present application, there is provided a size-adjustable mounting system to fit a recoil pad onto the stock of a gun without the need to grind the pad to size. This is accomplished by providing variable size to an intermediary adjustment layer, built into the pad proper or both, in order to blend minor size variations between the gun stock and recoil pad. In one example, the system features a ring which is outwardly adjusted by an inner plate deformable a variable distance and bearing on the ring, the outside surface of the ring providing a field-adjustable profile given the individual gun stock against which to measure and adjust to, or be pre-set to a known profile for later installation.

In accordance with a second aspect, an inner plate may have notches or slots cut into its outer edge periphery and have each projection formed between the notches bent up largely at right angles so as to present the face of the plate material to the ring, and thereby provide incremental segments around the profile, each projection separated by two adjacent notches. Each incremental segment projection bears internally against an outer ring at small enough intervals to each other so as to project a smooth curve to the outer side of the ring.

In accordance with a third aspect, the inner plate may be formed to have the broadest surface of each segment bearing largely against the elastic tension of the molding ring, and when individually adjusted, cause the molding ring to be forced outwards radially on an axis roughly perpendicular to the bore of the gun and/or in the direction of the plane surface onto which the butt-stock attaches to the pad, and take on a smooth contour which matches the profile size of the stock.

In accordance with yet another, the molding ring may be elastomeric or behave plastically or with memory in response to a mechanical force applied to it by the action of the segments of the inner plate bearing against it, and deform it to stretch radially.

In accordance with yet another aspect, the system may provide a tool free method of installing and removing the pad to aid in the adjustment, where the pad is held onto the stock with an intermediary plate, mechanical lugs, and a retractable wedge system.

In yet another variant of the invention, by using the existing gunstock as a form with which to cast the interface between the recoil pad and the gunstock to an exacting size, and which comprises of a containment as applied to the surface of the gunstock in the form of thin sheet material which takes on the intimate form of the profile of the stock once wrapped around the stock by its flexible nature, and which provides enough radial resistance to forces acting from within by a catalyzing fluid injected into appropriate chambers fitted within the interface skirt of the recoil pad or interface plate, and which, when filled, expands to force the skirt from within to fill the space as set out by the thin sheet material form until contact with the thin sheet material is achieved, and thereby produce a close fitting recoil pad between the pad proper, the interface plate, the form, and the gunstock.

Further details and other aspects of the present invention will be apparent from the detailed descriptions and figures included below.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Reference is now made in the accompanying figures, in which:

FIG. 1 is an exploded view of one example variant showing the general orientation of the parts.

FIG. 2a is a face view of an example of the inner plate, the wedge plate and the molding ring.

FIG. 3a is a face view of an example of an inner plate before forming the segments

FIG. 4 is a cross section view of an example of the assembly showing an example of the method holding the pad to the wedge plate.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the wedge.

FIG. 6 shows a partial face view of an assembly tab and a partial edge section view of an example of an inner plate assembly tab bent into the wedge plate.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the face view of the wedge plate and wedge with the wedge retracted and a second view with the wedge inserted, and the relative position of a wedge wrench in both inserted and retracted wedge positions.

FIG. 8 suggests an alternate radial adjusting method.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 illustrates an exploded view of a preferred assembly method where a recoil pad 10 is mounted to a gun stock 12 by two screws 13, screwed through holes 99 in the wedge plate 18 and holes 98 in the inner plate 17. It is understood by those skilled in the art that pins, rivets, nails, cams, molded beads and coves, glue, or a multitude of other assembly methods may be employed to hold the assembly to the stock.

The assembly of wedge plate 18, inner plate 17 and molding ring 42 form the unit called the adjusting mechanism 19 and by action of the parts and features as described below, permit changing a physical contact location on one continuous rim (not shown here,) or a multitude of contact points 50 to affect an adjustment to a Molding ring 42, or to individual overlapping beads or plates attached to each contact point segment, which can slide against each other like scales on a reptile, and which permit changing some or all of the profile of the assembled adjusting mechanism and it's molding ring while forming a quasi-continuous profile, to match the edge of the stock.

The pad 10 is held onto the wedge plate 18 at one end by lug 11 engaging protrusion 14 in the wedge plate 18 and at the other end by a wedge 61 held captive by machined cavity 22 and wedge lug 30.

Spring pin 21 holds wedge 61 captive in a pocket 22 machined in the wedge plate 18 by aligning with hole 23 in the wedge plate 18, hole 24 in the inner plate 17, and slot 62 in the wedge 61. The wedge plate 18 and inner plate 17 may be assembled permanently into one part by one or more staking tabs 32, into receiving holes 33 in the wedge plates 18 by interference fit, or by riveting, gluing, crimping, or any other convenient method apparent to those skilled in the art (not shown). The wedge 61 can be captive sandwiched between the inner plate 17 and the wedge plate 18, and prevented from falling out of its machined cavity 22 by pin 21. It is understood that to avoid complexity in manufacturing, the assembly of inner plate 17, wedge plate 18, wedge 61 and pin 21 is not necessary to the function of the system, but rather is proposed as a service to the installer to avoid having to handle the plurality of parts, and may aid in the overall function by reducing or eliminating the relative motion between the inner plate and wedge plate by virtue of the tenacity of the staked joint offered by the tabs 32. The pad mounting boss 40 is made with clearance so as to slidingly be received in a matching cavity 41 into wedge plate 18, so that any lateral forces F1 exerted on the pad are transferred to the wedge plate and through the friction of the screws 13, ultimately to the stock 12. Furthermore, in service, the screws 13 cause the inner plate 17, the wedge plate 18 and the mechanical forces F2 acting on the pad mount lugs 11 and 30 to be transferred effectively to the stock and thus protect the staking tabs 32 from ever being loaded mechanically. It is apparent that any number of mounting and locking strategies could be employed to maintain alignment between pad 10, wedge plate 18 and inner plate 17, including but not only pins, bosses and recesses, dovetail joints, cams and ramps, clips, or any other mechanical lock configuration capable of bearing the static and dynamic forces required.

An elastomeric molding ring 42 is suggested which might have a round, obround, square, filleted or beveled corner square or rectilinear or any other profile, smooth, textured or non-smooth surface, and which might be of any offsetting color, and which might imply aspects of esthetics as a design feature and which might serve to draw the observer's attention to the molding ring rather than to the point of transition between the pad and the stock; especially if the molding ring edge is crafted with profile shape and/or optical characteristics to reflect ambient light and thus form the aspect of a line or a pattern of repeating dots, rope twist, camouflage pattern, or any other suitable mechanical pattern or visual illusion in art, such as to minimize the appearance of or to cast shadows on the transitions. Generally, the material of the molding ring is chosen for its inherent elasticity, good tensile memory, environmental and chemical stability in order to maintain its radial clamping force F3 once stretched and snapped into the space 43 between the pad 10 and the stock 12. The molding ring may also be vulcanized, glued, confined to the inner plate by a bead and cove arrangement (not shown) or any other means that would aid in holding it fast to the inner plate 17 or be mechanically prevented from separating from the assembled unit.

At installation, once mounting boss 40 is inserted into cavity 41, the wedge 61 is driven into cavity 22 and engages the mounting lug 30. The molding ring 42 may further help to confine the wedge 62 by action of its elasticity holding it inwards with force F3.

As suggested in FIG. 2 by the face view of the adjusting mechanism 19, each adjusting segment 50, as shown on the inner plate 17 may be delivered to the customer in the initial state of being formed close to the wedge plate 51. Upon installation and adjustment, each segment 50 is adjusted outwardly 58 by use of prying, bending, hammering or otherwise deforming, the distance between the contact point of each segment 52 and the edge of the stock 53 being controlled, so that even with a radical change in shape or profile dimensions as shown at 54, the true profile of the adjusted molding ring 42 can be made to follow the profile of the stock 53. The radial distance of adjustment permitted by this design is generally ½ the section of the molding ring 55, but can be made to be much more by changing the section profile of the molding ring 42 or by forming the ends of the segments to engage the molding ring with interference (not shown), and thereby permit greater excursion of the molding strip from the gap formed by the pad and stock 43 without risking that the molding strip be susceptible to falling off or being pulled out inadvertently.

In practice, the entire installation procedure is accomplished generally in less than 15 minutes, whereas the craft of adjusting by grinding the traditional pad with professional skilled technicians and specialty tools and procedures can take hours, it is messy, and risks damaging the stock finish.

As suggested in FIG. 3, the flat profile of the inner plate 17 may be shown before bending up the segments 50.

As suggested in FIG. 4, the molding ring 42 is shown adjusted to the edge of the stock 12, and confined inwards into the space 43 between the pad and stock.

The radial adjustment of molding ring 42 is shown to be moved radially 57 by bending segment 56. Also, the wedge 61 is shown to be hooked behind lug 30, forcing the pad 10 to be held captive by locking boss 40 behind lugs 11 and 30.

In FIG. 5, the underside of wedge 61 is shown in section a-a to have a bevel 31 which engages a similar bevel 32 on wedge lug 30 of the pad mounting boss 40 and aids in promoting the wedge 61 to enter under lug 30. Of course, any practical means of aiding fit, finish and/or assembly known to those skilled in the art, or indeed that the wedge be replaced by cams, pins, clips, or any other multitudes of attachment methods would be a reasonable substitution.

In FIG. 6, the assembly tabs 32 as suggested on the inner plates 17 and which are used to stake the inner plate 17 and the wedge plate 18 together can be seen superimposed on the hole shape of the wedge plate 35 and show the relative mechanical interference 37 which causes the two parts to become locked together once the tab 32 is forced into the hole 36.

In FIG. 7a and FIG. 7b , the relative position of the wedge can be seen where the incursion into the opening 41 in the wedge plate 18 by the wedge 61 reaches into the space and serves to lock the pad mounting boss 40 together as at 45.

A wrench 71, provided with the assembly kit, is shown, and is used to remove the wedge 72 or adjust the pad or gun. It is understood that a pick, awl, screwdriver or other useful common implement could also be used to accomplish the removal. The wrench 71 provided can serve as a marketing tool to endear the holder of the wrench to the system of mounting and adjusting the invention, and may be made with topography available in the shank or head to carry marketing collateral 100, logos 101 or other design aspects in its profile so as to advance the notion of value, novelty or quality.

FIG. 8 suggests alternate methods of supplying adjusting tabs or segments 70 to the adjusting mechanism, cut monolithically from the mounting plate 71, could be used to apply incremental radial adjustment motion to a molding ring 72 by being cut into the periphery of the plate used to mount the pad 71, and deformed to achieve adjustability. The material at the base of each tab acting as a hinge 73, and providing enough force to the outer tip of the each tab to expand the ring 72 in a fashion typical of the description in FIGS. 1 thru 4.

While the preceding suggests certain construction aspects to permit field adjustment to recoil pad mounting systems, and in particular to provide the motion of a molding ring by an adjusting mechanism, it is understood that other methods of accomplishing a field adjustable mechanism of changing the profile could be devised. For instance the injection of liquid catalyzing and hardening compounds into a receiving bladder or into the interior of a rim of flexible material by hypodermic syringe or other useful pumping element could be employed to achieve changing the size of, and achieving a close radial size match between the stock and pad by having first confined the outer profile of the gunstock with a thin sheet of appropriately stiff material and of clamping the sheet with a tension inducing mechanism in order to force the sheet to comply with the gunstock with enough radial clamping force to overcome a hydrostatic force introduced from within by the effect of the catalyzing compound suitably injected from within the bladder; the hydrostatic force having been sufficient to expand the bladder to take up all of the space available and top cast, in effect the bladder to the exacting shape of the space within the sheet, carrying the intimate shape of the gunstock.

Another method might be to laminate a series of thin plates made parallel to the stock-pad interface, each one taking some space along the periphery of the stock, and adjusting each one to slide radially to match the edge of the profile, whereupon the stack would be glued, pinned, riveted, screwed clamped or otherwise fastened to maintain the shape, whether these or any other system of adjusting was used alone to provide the finished outer surface, or in conjunction with molding rings. Yet other methods might be to wedge, jam, clip, pin, and screw or otherwise introduce volume occupying parts into the rim of a flexible or stretchy layer near the periphery of the object in order to increase its volume outwardly at will and by controllable amounts, and thereby achieve the same field-adjusting feature. In yet another method, a ring formed with small wavy ripples would be supplied and intended to be inserted between the molding ring and an inner stationary shape, and together with controlled deformation by hammering, bending, deforming or otherwise changing the height of each wave would serve as an adjustable spacer to hold a molding ring or other finishing garnishment to a distance acceptable to the end-user, or may well constitute the entire adjusting mechanism. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad with a movable continuous or segmented periphery with which is to affect size changes to a profile by manipulation.
 2. The size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad as in claim 1, which comprises of an adjusting mechanism mounted between the recoil pad and the gunstock or constructed into the recoil pad proper.
 3. The size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad as in claim 1, wherein radial adjustment of the outward surface of the pad is affected by an inner plate, wherein the inner plate serves to bear against a ring, the outer surface of the ring forming the profile being adjusted by action of the inner plate, to match the shape of the gun stock closely without requiring the pad to be materially altered.
 4. The size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad as in claim 1, wherein the plate has one or more segments along its periphery formed by slits, the surface of the plate periphery being formed to be oriented generally normal to the radial axis of the desired adjustment direction, each of the segments serving as an independently variable adjustment point, each of the independently variable adjustment points bearing radially outwards against the ring individually.
 5. The size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad as in claim 1, which has an adjusting mechanism comprising of at least in part the ring, the ring as supplied being somewhat smaller in profile length that that of the pad or stock so as to necessitate stretching in order to apply it to the stock, the ring being adjustable outward radially against elastic tension inherent in the ring by the action of the segments, each of the segments being adjustable by deformation and causing a persistent change in position of the face of each segment acting against the force derived from the inherent elasticity of the ring holding the ring inwards in contact with the segments, and the inherent elasticity having enough force to resist unintended removal of the ring through casual use.
 6. The size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad as in claim 1, in which the plate has a radial dimension somewhat smaller than the true profile of either the pad or the butt-stock, and which when initially supplied has a radial space between the segment faces and the stock profile edge greater than the cross section of the ring supplied, so that when the segment faces forming the adjusting elements are advanced, the ring can be made to advance outwardly to meet the true profile of the gun stock. The radial space provides a groove between the stock and the pad into which the ring will snap into by virtue of the inherent elasticity of the ring material.
 7. A gunstock recoil pad mounting system, which has a wedge receiving pocket provided on one face of a mounting plate which accepts a captive wedge which when inserted engages a boss protruding from a gunstock recoil pad and produces a fastening force which holds a second boss protruding from the gunstock recoil behind a lug on the opposite end of the receiving pocket, and provides a reversible attachment.
 8. A gunstock recoil pad mounting system as in claim 7, which has a boss protruding from the back face of the pad, with lugs on at least two reverse facing surfaces capable of engaging similar opposite features in the mounting plate.
 9. A gunstock recoil pad mounting system as in claim 7, where the wedge is provided with a head, and from which a tool with a curved finger on one extremity can engage the wedge head in order to pull it clear of the mounting boss, and which uses a recess provided adjacent to the wedge receiving pocket in order to guide the insertion and operation of the tool.
 10. A size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad fitted with at least one bladder along its periphery with which is to affect size changes to a profile by the introduction of a space-filling medium into the bladder(s).
 11. An size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad installation system using a pre-existing gunstock as a rigid object against which to set the size of an installation system consisting of a form wrapped around the gunstock and held in tension around the stock by a clamp, the edge of the form exceeding the gunstock by a convenient length and forming an exact-sized inner recess duplicating the profile of the stock, into which a gunstock recoil pad as in claim 7 was pre-installed, the gap between the gunstock recoil pad and the stock being fitted with a bladder, the bladder having one or more chambers into which is introduced a catalyzing fluid, the catalyzing fluid being introduced into the one or more ports by suitable pumping equipment, the catalyzing fluid being forced into the bladder to produce some hydrostatic distension of the bladder, the bladder being elastic in nature in order to comply with the introduction of the catalyzing fluid, the expansion of the bladder in response to the catalyzing fluid filling the natural space set out by the foil as an outer boundary, the pad as an upper boundary, the stock as a lower boundary, and the mounting plate as an inner boundary, and making permanent the shape of the bladder as set out by the foil once the catalyzing fluid hardened.
 12. A size-adjustable gunstock recoil pad as in claim 10, where the bladders are non-hermetic, and receive space-occupying objects of suitable size and shape inserted into ports to effect the expansion of the bladder to match the adjacent gunstock profile onto which it is installed
 13. A size adjustable gunstock recoil pad as in claim 1, where the periphery of an interface plate mounted between a recoil pad and a gunstock is made radially adjustable at intervals by one or more slits made into the edge of the plate at an oblique angle, and causing individual projections to be formed with a hinge point available at or near the root of each projection in the homogeneous material near a point where the cut(s) terminate, and with a localized widening of the kerf partway along each cut into which to apply a prying tool such as a screwdriver, in order to adjust the outward end of the projection(s) to conform to a desired profile.
 14. A size adjustable gunstock recoil pad as in claim 13, where the widening of kerfs are made to accept cams, tapered screws, tapered pins, stepped ramps or wedges in order to affect positive outward positioning of the terminal end of each projection as they are progressively inserted, thereby affecting the outer profile size of the interface plate. 